Clarke, Marian W. (Marian Williams), 1880-1953

<p>Marian Williams Clarke won election to the U.S. House of Representatives less than two months after the death of her husband, Representative John Davenport Clarke, in an automobile crash. Shortly after being sworn into office, Congresswoman Clarke confided to the Washington Post: “I wanted dreadfully to come, of course. I felt the need of some absorbing work.” While coping with her own loss, Clarke attended to the needs of individuals and industry in her local district struggling with the effects of the Great Depression.</p>

<p>Marian K. Williams was born on July 29, 1880, in Standing Stone, Pennsylvania, the daughter of Rhys and Florence K. Williams. Her parents moved her and her older brother, William Kingsley, to Cheyenne, Wyoming, in 1891, and the Williamses spent their childhood in various states. Marian Williams attended art school at the University of Nebraska and graduated with a BA from Colorado College in 1902. As an undergraduate at Colorado College, she enrolled in a public speaking class taught by John Clarke. “At the end of the course he called me to him and said he hated to discourage me but he felt duty bound to tell me I never would be an orator,” Marian recalled. “In fact, he explained that he really shouldn’t pass me in the course but he would stretch a point and let me by on my written work.” Years later she would deliver campaign speeches on his behalf. With her strength as a writer, she worked three years as a reporter for a Colorado Springs newspaper. Marian Williams married Clarke in 1905, and the couple moved to New York City, where John worked for several mining companies before graduating from Brooklyn Law School in 1911. After earning his law degree, John Clarke worked in the mining department of the Carnegie Steel Corporation and for several other mining interests. The Clarkes raised one son, John Duncan. In 1915 they moved to John Clarke’s native Delaware County, in upstate New York. He pursued a newfound interest in agriculture and forestry, operating “Arbor Hill,” a farm near Dehli, New York. He became president of the New York State Forestry Association and vice president of the New York Conservation Association.</p>

<p>In 1920 John Clarke easily won election as a U.S. Representative from a conservative New York district covering the city of Binghamton and surrounding counties. Except for the 69th Congress (1925–1927), for which he was an unsuccessful candidate, he represented this district from 1921 to 1933. A strong believer in environmental conservation, he cosponsored the Clarke–McNary Reforestation Bill with Oregon Senator Charles Linza McNary in 1924, creating a comprehensive national reforestation policy. The bill authorized the President to set aside national forests on military and other federal lands and established a federally funded seedling planting program to assist “the owners of farms in establishing, improving, and in growing and renewing useful timber crops.” Marian Clarke played an active role in her husband’s congressional career in Washington, DC. “You see I was always interested in my husband’s work and followed his activities very closely,” Clarke told the Washington Post. “It was a rare day that didn’t find me in the gallery all eyes and ears for what was going on.” She recalled that her political experience also included her work as a “general factotum” in her husband’s office.</p>

<p>Marian Williams Clarke (July 29, 1880 – April 8, 1953) was a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives from New York. She was the second woman elected to Congress from New York, after Ruth Baker Pratt.</p>

<p>Clarke was born in Standing Stone, Pennsylvania. She attended the University of Nebraska at Lincoln art school for a year, before she graduated from Colorado College in Colorado Springs, Colorado in 1902. She was elected to Congress in 1933 to fill the vacancy caused by the death of her husband John Davenport Clarke who had died in a car crash on November 5, 1933. She served from December 28, 1933 until January 3, 1935, withdrawing her nomination for reelection prior to the primary of 1934. She died in Cooperstown, New York. She is interred at the Locust Hill Cemetery in Hobart, NY.</p>